Category Archives: Behind the Lense

One of my dreams came true a few months ago. (Or I should say special dream, because living in Iceland is a dream coming true every day. *emotional rant over*) I had never ever thought that I would fly over an erupting volcano, but it happened. Even though there was a moment when I thought we all were going to die and the airplane will crash into the hot lava this was one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me.

I took some pictures of Iceland’s Holuhraun lava field which I’d like to share with you guys.

Bárðarbunga is a large central volcano lying underneath Iceland’s 500-m thick Vatnajökull glacier in the center of the country. It is located at the junction between the eastern and northern volcanic rift zones in the area where the present-day center of the mantle hot spot beneath Iceland is thought to be.

Holuhraun and the closed safety zone is in an unpopulated area north of Vatnajökull glacier. The area consists mainly of sands and lava fields where there is no vital infrastructure. Bardarbunga has had about 300-400 eruptions during the past 10,000 years which includes only 23 eruptions historic times. Approx 8600 years ago, Bardarbunga produced the largest known lava flow during the past 10,000 years on earth (more than 21 cubic kilometers of volume).

The eruption has began on 29 August 2014 (still happening!) and has now produced a lava field of more than 85 km2 and 1.4 km3 which is the largest in Iceland since 1783. The largest lava eruption in Iceland before Holuhraun was in Askja in 1875.

…and finally it was time for our favorite music festival of the year. We started the countdown back in August when we bought the tickets, and time passed by so quickly, it became November in what it feels like a heartbeat. Those four days went by even faster, so it’s good we have some pictures as proof, otherwise it would seem like a not-so-surreal hallucination.

The first Iceland Airwaves was held exactly in 1999 and took place in a cool airplane hangar at Reykjavik Airport. Since the first time it has grown out the hangar and spread all over town: cafes, pubs, stores, hostels and even the street have turned into a concert place. With its off-venue schedule the festival has something for those as well who don’t have a ticket. With approximately 9,000 other festival goers and who knows how many off-venue attendees Airwaves turns Reykjavik to one enormous party-town for a few days each year, where the visitors can bump into an interesting performance at every corner.

We had a blast with our friends Topas and Captain Morgan and although we didn’t make it to all the concerts we wanted to (decided to surrender before Caribou when we saw that people were standing in line from the Art Museum to the Bæjarins Beztu hot dog stand and went to check some local bands instead) we had an amazing time together.